Talking about art

Many people shy away from talking about art. Some can be discounted because they simply don't evaluate it beyond "pretty" or "not," but many others don't talk about it because they don't feel they know enough about it.

Perhaps you're afraid someone will disagree. Perhaps you fear someone in the room will have an art degree or some art history class on their transcript and smugly point out that the blurry landscape you think would look better if you could just make out more detail is actually an impressionistic piece, meant to be "blurry" because it represents the artist's view and serves as a visual interpretation of the artist's feelings about the world at that point in time. Duh.

Perhaps you think the artist should have put on glasses and painted a clear picture.

With Art Slam!, a new program at the Crisp Museum, Peter Nguyen seeks to show people that you can talk about art no matter what background you have. The museum director says, plainly put, Art Slam! is two people with or without an art background who come together to talk about art, how it relates to their particular fields of interest and why their opinion of it is valid.

Audience participation is encouraged and no prerequisite art knowledge or experience is required.

The first Art Slam! brings together Southeast Missouri State University professors Dr. Joel Rhodes and Dr. Marc Strauss at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the art gallery in the Crisp Museum. Both men are scrappy, opinionated talkers.

Rhodes, a history professor, has a few books out and loves to talk history and the meanings of life, the universe and everything. Strauss, a dance instructor, spends his time choreographing and fine-tuning the student-performed shows you see in Bedell Performance Hall and the Rust Flexible Theatre.

The two usually cool and collected academics will engage in a battle of wits and perspectives over the museum's current exhibit, "Guild Hall: An Adventure In the Arts" as it relates to each of their disciplines.

You're not going to sit and watch a debate. The two men will walk around the gallery to point out specific pieces. You will follow them around and shout out your opinion. That's right: no raising your hand or waiting until the end for some stuffy mediator to open the floor for a question-and-answer session. Guests are encouraged to verbally agree or disagree with Rhodes or Strauss.

Nguyen said he hopes this open dialogue will encourage people to realize that they can connect art to their own backgrounds and that they, too, are allowed an opinion about it.